Results 8,101-8,120 of 32,726 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: If the Deputy is going to let me put a point to him, he should let me finish it off.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I have answered the Deputy's question-----

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: -----but I will not get into a binary approach because the Deputy will have me back before the committee holding me accountable for the answers I give him.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: It is normally when people assure me that matters will not be confrontational that they end up being confrontational. This is like AOB in a party meeting.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I did not in budget 2017 identify an efficiency figure and I did not at that point identify the savings we had delivered across the entirety of 2016.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I did not identify an efficiency figure because at that point there were three months remaining in the calendar year.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Excuse me, I thought the Deputy was referring to 2016. Regarding why I did not identify such an efficiency savings figure for 2017, I will not go into a spending review and lay out the precise figure I am looking to save. The reason for this is I want this to be an ongoing approach that will happen every year, and if I lay down the exact figure we are looking to save, I will perhaps create...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The spending review will be implemented this year over one third of Government expenditure but it would then be an ongoing process over a three to three and a half year period. My objective is that it will have covered off the entirety of Government expenditure.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: It is an extraordinary statement to say one is not interested in the merits or demerits of a policy position.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: To respond to the Deputy, I have a responsibility across this year, to this committee and to the Oireachtas, to explain how we will pay for the €120 million, alongside delivering the other commitments that we have for 2017. I will discharge that responsibility across this year. The reason I have brought forward that proposal for €120 million, and I am confident I will be able...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not have the luxury to look at a decision and say that regardless of its rights and wrongs, we are going to analyse it and suspend the rights and wrongs of that policy. I do not have that luxury. It may be one that the Deputy has-----

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: ----- but it is not one that I have.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: What I have weighed up, in respect of this decision, is the choice I can make that will give me the greatest certainty regarding what the pay bill will look like in 2017. If the entire public pay bill was to go down the route it faced the risk of going down towards the end of 2016, the figures the Government would be asked but would be unable to find would be many multiples of this. They...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I differ with the Deputy. There are clearly assigned roles for the Executive and the Government in our Constitution which allows the Government to take decisions in areas and implement them. The Government is then examined and scrutinised by the Oireachtas after it has done that. Deputy Doherty knows there are different roles laid down for the Oireachtas and the Government when it comes to...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: On the latter part of the Deputy's question, any paperwork available to me on the spending review and this decision will be shared with the Deputy. However, if I was in a position where we had already identified the outcome of a spending review, then the Deputy would be asking me why I was going ahead with it.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: This is not about recognising those outside the Lansdowne Road agreement but those inside it. The only protagonists I have had in the outcome reached earlier today are those representing those inside the Lansdowne Road agreement. I do not believe one could justify this as rewarding militancy - the Deputy's phrase, not mine - when this agreement only benefits those inside the Lansdowne Road...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I completely disagree with the Deputy on that point. We went through a period where 500 secondary schools were closed. The Deputy welcomed the action that led to their closure. The reason the schools were closed was because the Government did not want to make agreements on public pay outside the Lansdowne Road agreement. The Deputy wants immediate restoration of public pay with the...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: We will.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I have a substantial number of background papers on these issues. Have my officials and I agreed how we are going to find-----

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Estimates for Public Services 2017 (Revised): Discussion (17 Jan 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: We have many options.